Dark Fire (42 page)

Wallace was horrified. He glanced toward the door, suddenly aware of the deep silence in the house.

Darius glided closer. "What is it precisely you wished to learn about me, Mr. Wallace? Now is your opportunity."

Wallace jerked out the syringe filled with the toxin and plunged it deep within Darius's arm. He jumped back, grinning in triumph.

"Ah, yes, the poison you worked so hard to develop," Darius said softly, his voice as beautiful and unconcerned as always. "It is so difficult to know what really works unless you have the chance to test it. Let us observe the results together." The soulless eyes met Wallace's. "You do fancy yourself a scientist, do you not, Mr. Wallace?"

Wallace nodded slowly, staring at the one he thought was a vampire. Darius slowly rolled up the sleeve of his silk shirt, exposing the roped muscles of his arm. He stared at his skin, causing red flames to flicker and dance, and Wallace nearly screamed when golden dots of liquid poison began to ooze from the Darius's pores and run in a stream down his skin to drip onto the floor.

"Interesting, is it not?" Darius inquired in a menacing purr. "You should have known more about an enemy you wished to challenge, Mr. Wallace. It is a poor business to hunt without sufficient knowledge of your prey."

"Where is the woman now?"

Darius's eyebrows shot up. "Are you really so arrogant that you think I would allow your ridiculous assassins to take from me what is mine? I suspect you are more interested in the whereabouts of your soldiers."

Wallace sighed and ran a hand through his shock of gray hair, leaving it standing on end. "And where are they?"

"What was left of them can be claimed from the local morgue," Darius answered, unconcerned.

"I suppose my other men are also destroyed," Wallace ventured.

Darius sent his mind seeking throughout the house, then smiled in satisfaction. "I must admit, they seem to have been in very poor health. You should choose your companions more carefully, Mr. Wallace."

Wallace's faded eyes flashed with sudden malice. "I see that you yourself have not gone unscathed. You are bleeding."

The white teeth gleamed again. "It is nothing, a mere scratch. My body will heal without difficulty, but thank you for your concern."

Wallace hissed between his teeth. "You mean to kill me."

The glowing red eyes poured over him like molten lava. "With great pleasure, Mr. Wallace. I protect my own. I allowed you to go free after the last threat you made to my family, but you insist on asking for release from your miserable life. I can do no other than oblige you."

"I will go back to Europe, leave you alone."

Darius shook his head slowly. "You had her touched by your filthy servants. You intended to rape her, torture her. Not because you thought her vampire but because it would bring you pleasure. You wanted me here, Mr. Wallace, and now you have the very thing you wished for."

Wallace glanced at his young companion, the one he had chosen to groom as his protégé because he had found the same deviant nature in the young man as was in himself.

Darius had easily picked thoughts of starring in a snuff film with Tempest out of the younger man's head, knew he didn't believe in vampires but was attracted to the violence and sexual rush the vampire-hunting society promised to provide. His black eyes bored into the young man while he contemplated the evil that existed in both his world and the human world. He released the young man from the thrall. Instantly the youth launched himself at Darius, seemingly too dense to understand that Darius had been controlling him.

Darius stood so still that he seemed to be a part of the room, of the earth itself, silent, watchful, unmovable. At the last second, just as the man was about to lay hands on him, Darius shimmered into vapor, dissolved, and reappeared behind the young man.

"Daniel, behind you!" Wallace warned.

Daniel tried to drag the gun from out of his waistband as he turned. Even as he caught sight of the intruder, the vampire's face rippled, contorted, and lengthened into a long muzzle. Teeth burst forth, razor-sharp, jaws rushing forward to bore straight into Daniel's chest, tearing a hole to reach the pounding heart.

Wallace leapt out of his chair, knocking it over as he tried to get to the door. The elegant figure moved, a gliding blur that cut off his line of retreat. Once more Darius looked like a handsome man, black eyes impassive, mouth set and cruel. There was not a stain on his immaculate shirt, although a puddle of thick, sticky blood pooled around Daniel's body. He looked like a rag doll lying in a heap on the floor.

Wallace froze, not daring to get any closer to the terrible fiend that threatened him. "Don't you see?" he hissed. "I'm like you. I could serve you. Make me like you are-immortal."

Darius lifted an eyebrow. "You flatter yourself to think we are anything alike. There are those of my people who have become evil and twisted, rotten shells as you are. They might grant you a short stay of execution, allowing you to live for a while on the meat of the dead while you serve their dark purposes. But that is not who I am."

"Who are you, then?" Wallace whispered. He could hear something else now. Not the silence that haunted this house of death. Not the sound of his men coming to his aid. But low, insidious whispers assaulting his ears. He tried to repress them, not understanding the language but knowing there were more creatures near than the one he was facing. They waited, calling to this one to finish Wallace, to come to them.

"I am an instrument of justice. I have come to send you from this world to another, where you must answer for your terrible crimes against mortals and immortals alike." Darius said the words softly, almost gently.

Wallace shook his head adamantly. "No, you can't do that. You can't. I'm a leader. I have an army behind me. No one can defeat me." He raised his voice hysterically. "Where are you? All of you, I'm in danger. Protect your leader!"

The terrible soulless eyes never left Wallace's face. Those black eyes were completely empty, devoid of all feeling. Then tiny red flames began to flicker in their depths, feeding Wallace's dread.

"There is no one left," Darius said. "Only you. And I sentence you to death for your crimes against all humanity. Please oblige me, sir." Darius gestured toward the hall.

Wallace found he could not fight the compulsion.

Step by macabre step, he moved, his body jerking like a marionette as he moved down the hall toward the stairs. Wallace tried to scream, but no sound emerged. His body continued to obey the commands of the demon he had summoned to the ranch house. Once upstairs, the creature continued to gesture him forward. Inch by inch, step by step, relentlessly, implacably, Wallace was drawn forward toward the pool room.

He gasped as he saw the four men lying lifeless, without a mark on them, in the middle of the floor. Then the compulsion pushed him to the balcony door. Below was a wrought iron fence, each separate post rising like a sharpened stake. Wallace stared down at the lethal pegs and tried to stop his next step. But he felt space beneath his forward foot, then air beneath his other one. And then he was falling, released from the demon's thrall so that his scream echoed in the night.

Darius stared down dispassionately at the body hanging on the fence, a stake driven directly through his heart. He stayed there quietly, fighting down the beast still raging for release, still calling for retribution and blood.

Tempest.
Deliberately he thought of her, took her into his body and soul, allowed her light to calm the terrible beast, to once more restore the balance between intellectual man and instinctive predator. He was no longer a savage ruled by instinct, demanding blood and vengeance, but once more her other half. He could do no other than return to her as quickly as possible. He turned then, back to his family, back to his people.

Julian sighed softly. "You must take my blood, Darius, and then go to ground to heal your wounds."

"I suppose I must concede you are right."

"And it nearly kills you to admit that." Julian smirked at him.

A slow smile touched the hard edge of Darius's mouth. "Oh, shut up," he said tiredly but with a glint of real humor in his eyes.

Chapter Eighteen

Darius rose two days later, his body completely healed. With the proper rejuvenating rest, the blood of a powerful ancient, and the rich soil, his full strength was renewed. At once he sought news of his family. He mentally checked with each of them to ensure they were well and safe. He assured them, in return, that he was whole and healed and would soon awaken Tempest.

Darius rose voraciously hungry, and he knew that if all had gone well with Tempest, she would be, also. He hunted, choosing prey close to the cave, feeding ravenously, taking enough for both of them. When he returned to the cavern, he prepared for her rising, crushing herbs to fill the air with a soothing aroma, spreading candles so that little flames danced on the walls and flickered invitingly. He made up a thick bed with soft sheets to welcome her.

Darius descended to her and cradled her in his arms, floated out of the earth, and closed the deep hole so no sign would remain of what might appear to her to be a grave. Tempest looked beautiful even in her sleep. Even more beautiful than he remembered. Her skin was flawless, her hair a mass of thick red-gold silk tumbling around her face. He carried her to the steaming mineral pool and woke her as he lowered her into the water.

He bent his head to her soft mouth, capturing her first breath as she drew air into her lungs and exhaled. She tasted like light and goodness. She tasted like hunger and flame. Her long lashes fluttered, then lifted, so that he was staring into her vivid green eyes. A faint trace of humor crept into the emerald depths. It was amazing what it did to his heart, melting it and simultaneously squeezing it hard. His chest felt inordinately tight, his heart pounding with fear about the consequences of her courageous choice.

"So, hopefully, it isn't the deranged thing going on here. I don't have a mad desire to turn upside down and hang from my toes like a bat, but I definitely have a craving." The seductive caress of her voice played over his skin like fingers. Her mind, when he touched it, was a mixture of fear and humor, as if she couldn't quite decide which to go with.

"It is natural to be hungry, honey," he reassured her, his palm sweeping the silken strands of her hair from her neck. The water was lapping at their skin, bubbles bursting over and around them, creating a sensation of intense pleasure.

"A bit on the repulsive side, though." She tried to be analytical about it.

"Do you think?" He bent his head to find the pulse beating in her throat, his tongue stroking a brand, feeling the sudden, impatient expectation. "What does it feel like when I kiss you like this?"

He was stealing her breath, her sanity. He was bringing her body to life again, bringing it to a living flame of need. "You know," she accused.

His teeth scraped lightly back and forth over her neck. Her stomach muscles clenched in anticipation. Heat pooled immediately within her, low and urgent.

"What about this, Tempest?" he persisted, his breath warm on her skin.

She arched her neck to give him better access, her entire body on fire for the erotic ecstasy of his bite. "You know, Darius."

His mouth moved to find hers in a slow, languid kiss he needed more than anything else at that moment.

It robbed her of her ability to think sane thoughts, to think of anything but him.

"That is how it feels to me," Darius said, "when your mouth moves over my skin, when your teeth find me and my blood flows into you. It is beautiful and erotic, and my body craves the sharing just as yours does."

His hands moved over her skin, a slow exploration of her shadows and curves, washing the remnants of soil from her. The feel of his palms gliding over her bare flesh, cupping her breasts possessively, sliding down her belly to the triangle of curls, slipping between her legs to seek her creamy heat brought fire to her body. Brought a hungry demand she had never known. He slowly inched a finger inside her. A second. He thrust into her, explored her velvet interior, knew it pulsed with life and need for only him. She pushed against his hand, seeking relief from the gathering fire. Tempest could feel her own inhibitions slipping away as her body initiated its own demands.

She began to stroke his skin, tracing the heavy muscles of his chest, the definition of his abdomen, then moved lower to cup the weight of him in her palm, to dance enticing fingers along the hard length of him. Darius lifted her into his arms, striding out of the pool to lay her on the bed he had made for her, his body blanketing hers.

Tempest smiled and circled his head with her arms, her hands stroking his thick hair. "At last, a bed. Do you think we'll know what to do in it?"

"Oh, yeah, baby. I do not think you have a thing to worry about. I know exactly what to do," he whispered against her throat. Her body felt like satin, her hair like silk. How could anything be so damned soft? He tasted her skin, the sweet honey of it, and allowed his body to swell into a fiery shaft of desire. Need poured into him, strong and urgent, a relentless hunger only her body could sate.

Tempest was caught up in the feel of his hard body and aggressive male domination, his brute strength, the shivering response her fingertips could induce. She smiled, her tongue tasting his neck, reveling in the rich texture of his skin. Her breasts were sensitive, swollen with need, aching with pleasure, pressed against his powerful chest.

And then she became aware of his heartbeat. The ebb and flow of his blood, like the waves of the sea advancing and retreating. The call, the hunger, the all-consuming hunger. Instantly she stiffened, cried out with fear, and struggled to free herself from the weight of his body.

Darius captured her slender wrists and stretched her arms above her head with easy mastery. "Shh, my love, be calm. Turn down the volume in your head. You know it can be  done. Already you were hearing things magnified, and you learned to deal with it easily."